This collection, the first of its kind, brings together specially commissioned academic essays to mark fifty years since the death of John Kennedy Toole.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).
The long-awaited biography of John Kennedy Toole ("A Confederacy of Dunces"), whose fascinating life and tragic death is one of the most amazing publishingstories in American literature.
A sweeping cultural history of one of the most influential mathematical books ever written Euclid's Elements of Geometry is one of the fountainheads of mathematics—and of culture. Written around 300 BCE, it has traveled widely across the centuries, generating countless new ideas and inspiring such figures as Isaac Newton, Bertrand Russell, Abraham Lincoln, and Albert Einstein. Encounters with Euclid tells the story of this incomparable mathematical masterpiece, taking readers from its origins in the ancient world to its continuing influence today. In this lively and informative book, Benjamin Wardhaugh explains how Euclid’s text journeyed from antiquity to the Renaissance, introducing some of the many readers, copyists, and editors who left their mark on the Elements before handing it on. He shows how some read the book as a work of philosophy, while others viewed it as a practical guide to life. He examines the many different contexts in which Euclid's book and his geometry were put to use, from the Neoplatonic school at Athens and the artisans' studios of medieval Baghdad to the Jesuit mission in China and the workshops of Restoration London. Wardhaugh shows how the Elements inspired ideas in theology, art, and music, and how the book has acquired new relevance to the strange geometries of dark matter and curved space. Encounters with Euclid traces the life and afterlives of one of the most remarkable works of mathematics ever written, revealing its lasting role in the timeless search for order and reason in an unruly world.
Harold Jacobs’s Geometry created a revolution in the approach to teaching this subject, one that gave rise to many ideas now seen in the NCTM Standards. Since its publication nearly one million students have used this legendary text. Suitable for either classroom use or self-paced study, it uses innovative discussions, cartoons, anecdotes, examples, and exercises that unfailingly capture and hold student interest. This edition is the Jacobs for a new generation. It has all the features that have kept the text in class by itself for nearly 3 decades, all in a thoroughly revised, full-color presentation that shows today’s students how fun geometry can be. The text remains proof-based although the presentation is in the less formal paragraph format. The approach focuses on guided discovery to help students develop geometric intuition.
A “delightful” tour of Rome’s St. Agnes Outside the Walls, examining the stories, rituals, and architecture of this seventeen-hundred-year-old building (The Christian Science Monitor). In The Geometry of Love, acclaimed author Margaret Visser, the preeminent “anthropologist of everyday life,” takes on the living history of the ancient church of St. Agnes. Examining every facet of the building, from windows to catacombs, Visser takes readers on a mesmerizing tour of the old church, covering its social, political, religious, and architectural history. In so doing, she illuminates not only the church’s evolution but also its religious legacy in our modern lives. Written as an antidote to the usual dry and traditional studies of European churches, The Geometry of Love is infused with Visser’s unmatched warmth and wit, celebrating the remarkable ways that one building can reveal so much about our history and ourselves.
'Mason, Graham, and Johnston-Wilder have admirably succeeded in casting most of school algebra in terms of generalisation activity? not just the typical numerical and geometric pattern-based work, but also solving quadratics and simultaneous equations, graphing equations, and factoring. The authors raise our awareness of the scope of generalization and of the power of using this as a lens not just for algebra but for all of mathematics!' - Professor Carolyn Kieran, Departement de Mathematiques, Universite du Quebec a Montreal Algebra has always been a watershed for pupils learning mathematics. This book will enable you to think about yourself as a learner of algebra in a new way, and thus to teach algebra more successfully, overcoming difficulties and building upon skills that all learners have. This book is based on teaching principles developed by the team at The Open University's Centre for Mathematics Education which has a 20-year track record of innovative approaches to teaching and learning algebra. Written for teachers working with pupils aged 7-16, it includes numerous tasks ready for adaption for your teaching and discusses principles that teachers have found useful in preparing and conducting lessons. This is a 'must have' resource for all teachers of mathematics, primary or secondary, and their support staff. Anyone who wishes to create an understanding and enthusiasm for algebra, based upon firm research and effective practice, will enjoy this book. This book is the course reader for The Open University Course ME625 Developing Algebraic Thinking
Attributed to Iamblichus (4th cent. AD), The Theology of Arithmetic is about the mystical, mathmatical and cosmological symbolism of the first ten numbers. Its is the longest work on number symbolism to survive from the ancient world, and Robin Waterfield's careful translation contains helpful footnotes, an extensive glossary, bibliography, and foreword by Keith Critchlow. Never before translated from ancient Greek, this important sourcework is indispensable for anyone intereted in Pythagorean though, Neoplatonism, or the symbolism of Numbers.
Mathematics and Religion: Our Languages of Sign and Symbol is the sixth title published in the Templeton Science and Religion Series, in which scientists from a wide range of fields distill their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. In this volume, Javier Leach, a mathematician and Jesuit priest, leads a fascinating study of the historical development of mathematical language and its influence on the evolution of metaphysical and theological languages. Leach traces three historical moments of change in this evolution: the introduction of the deductive method in Greece, the use of mathematics as a language of science in modern times, and the formalization of mathematical languages in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As he unfolds this fascinating history, Leach notes the striking differences and interrelations between the two languages of science and religion. Until now there has been little reflection on these similarities and differences, or about how both languages can complement and enrich each other.